HDTV Heads-Up: Hawaii Five-0, Fringe

Wednesday’s episode of Hawaii Five-O will be the last to screen in primetime.

Thereafter, the rest of the first season will screen late-night Mondays, in the post-Nightline slot where TV3 has been airing same-week repeats.

The network is dropping the crime show from 8.30pm Wednesdays after three months of persistently low ratings that a change of nights didn’t improve.

The news is not all bad for HD buffs – although an SD documentary about shark attacks in Egypt, Red Sea Jaws, will screen on May 25, a new HD series will debut on June 1.

Fringe fans also will be delighted to learn season three will screen in HD, when it begins on June 2.

Other HD series that have been consigned to late-night after tanking in peak-hour, like City Homicide and Eli Stone, have wound up airing in SD, so TVNZ can save money on HD tapes and materials.

But Fringe has escaped this fate, probably because it’s tied into TVNZ’s biggest output deal, with Warner Bros, and rates exceptionally well for a 10.30pm show.

Tonight’s episode is the second-season finale; next week TV2 will air the ‘earthquake’ episode it pulled in deference to survivors of the second Christchurch ‘quake and the week after, the episode that was left over from season one, Unearthed, which WB held back for the second season’s July 13 Blu-ray release.

“The network is dropping the crime show from 8.30pm Wednesdays after three months of persistently low ratings that a change of nights didn’t improve.”

What the hang do TV3 expect?

They shift it from prime time on Tuesday, then don’t tell us they have shifted it to a WED night (opposite a great comedy night on TV2 – including Two and a Half Men – there’s nothing that was going to out-rate that show at the moment!) and then keep dropping it from 8.30 to put in other crappy one-offs, like Underbelly! I wonder how many viewers knew that it was still even on?